10 most difficult New York riddles

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841-1918) was publisher of the New York Herald. He sponsored many sport and exploration events, including the first tennis match in the United States and Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa to find David Livingstone. He established three Gordon Bennett Cups: for international yachting, for automobile races and for ballooning. The last one continues to this day.

Balto was a sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported to combat an outbreak of the disease. After the mission's success, Balto and the Norwegian Gunnar Kaasen, who drove the sled, became celebrities.

The Empire State Building took only one year and 45 days to build, or 7 million man-hours. To this day, this is a record for a skyscraper of its height. Due to reduced costs during the Depression, the final costs totalled only $24.7 million instead of the estimated $43 million.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. The bridge is named for the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524 became the first documented European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.

The university was established as King's College by George II, and later renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolutionary War.

The easily recognizable Long Island extends 118 miles (190 km) eastward from New York Harbor. It is both the longest and the largest island in the contiguous United States.

Topsy was a female Asian elephant put to death in Coney Island, New York amusement park by electrocution in January 1903.

Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898.

Generally, most of Western Europe is located further north than the United States. New York City has pretty much the same latitude as Naples, Madrid or Istanbul. If you sail west from Great Britain (no matter which point you start at), you will land in Canada - the latitude of London corresponds to the southernmost shore of Hudson Bay!

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, who designed the World Trade Center and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of "New Formalism".